Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- COMMENTARY ON DE ANIMA: : Book 1
- COMMENTARY ON DE ANIMA: Book 2
- 1 Definition of Soul
- 2 What Is Life?
- 3 How Powers of Soul Are Distributed and United in the Soul
- 4 The Nutritive Faculty: Its Object and Subfaculties
- 5 Clarification of Being Affected, Living as Saving, and the First Definition of Sense
- 6 The Three Sorts of Sensible Objects
- 7 Vision, Medium, and Object
- 8 Hearing, Sound, and Voice
- 9 Smell and Odor
- 10 Taste Is a Contact Sense; the Tasteable
- 11 Touch, the Tangibles, and Sense as a Mean
- 12 Definition of Sense and Whether Sensibles Affect Nonperceiving Bodies
- COMMENTARY ON DE ANIMA: Book 3
- Bibliography
- Index
12 - Definition of Sense and Whether Sensibles Affect Nonperceiving Bodies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- COMMENTARY ON DE ANIMA: : Book 1
- COMMENTARY ON DE ANIMA: Book 2
- 1 Definition of Soul
- 2 What Is Life?
- 3 How Powers of Soul Are Distributed and United in the Soul
- 4 The Nutritive Faculty: Its Object and Subfaculties
- 5 Clarification of Being Affected, Living as Saving, and the First Definition of Sense
- 6 The Three Sorts of Sensible Objects
- 7 Vision, Medium, and Object
- 8 Hearing, Sound, and Voice
- 9 Smell and Odor
- 10 Taste Is a Contact Sense; the Tasteable
- 11 Touch, the Tangibles, and Sense as a Mean
- 12 Definition of Sense and Whether Sensibles Affect Nonperceiving Bodies
- COMMENTARY ON DE ANIMA: Book 3
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Having worked out the outline account of each of the particular senses (καθ᾽ ἑκάστην μὲν οὖν τῶν αἰσθήσεων εἴρηται τύπῳ, 424a15–16), Aristotle is ready to pull together a refined universal account applicable to every sense (καθόλου δὲ περὶ πάσης αἰσθήσεως, 424a17). Such a universal account was begun back in ii 5 where he said that sense power is in potentiality the sort that the sensible object is already in actuality (τὸ δ᾽ αἰσθητικόν δυνάμει ἐστὶν οἷον τὸ αἰσθητὸν ἤδη ἐντελεχείᾳ, 418a3–4). Now that his treatment of the particular senses has dealt with sensible objects, media, and sense organs, and he has developed the account of sense as a mean suited for discriminating sensible differences, he can provide a more illuminating definition of sense. He will give an account in terms of receptivity to sensible forms. The question pervading this chapter is, What is this receptivity such that sense perception results? Why are all bodies not similarly capable of being acted upon by sensible forms? Acknowledgment is made that the sense media along with the bodily sense organs receive some action of the sensible objects though differently from the sense.
Aristotle starts with the general account and then offers some explication:
Universally concerning every sense one ought to grasp that the sense is that which is receptive of the sensible forms without the matter, for instance, the wax receives the seal of the signet ring without the iron and gold, it takes the golden or brazen seal, but not as gold or bronze; and similarly indeed the sense in regard to each thing undergoes that which has color or flavor or sound, but not in which way each of those is spoken about, but as such, and according to logos. […]
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- Information
- Aristotle's De AnimaA Critical Commentary, pp. 338 - 358Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007